Clause 8 — Commencement

Part of Orders of the Day – in the House of Commons at 1:15 pm on 5 March 2008.

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Photo of David Miliband David Miliband Foreign Secretary 1:15, 5 March 2008

No, of course I am not saying that. What I am saying is that referendums were held on devolution in the case of the Scottish Parliament and the Welsh Assembly precisely because they changed the distribution of power in this country. A proposal to join the euro would also shift power, so a referendum would be necessary. It must be the content of the treaty that determines whether we should have a referendum. I want to go through, in detail, the allegations that have been made about the content of the treaty and then the facts about the treaty, and I will show that there is no way to make the argument that it represents a fundamental shift in the balance of power in this country.